doll. Rotting vegetables stuck to her face and hands, fresh dung, anything the children could find among the stalls.
Meggie had seen such things before, in Fenoglio’s company, but Mo stood there as if he had forgotten what he’d come to Ombra for. He was almost as pale as the woman, whose tears mingled with the dirt on her face, and for a moment Meggie was afraid he was going to reach for the knife hidden in his belt.
‘Mo!’ She took his arm and quickly led him on, away from the gawping children who were already turning to look at him, and into the street going up to the castle.
‘Have you seen anything like that before?’ The way he was looking at her! As if he couldn’t believe she had been able to control herself so well at such a sight.
His glance made Meggie feel ashamed. ‘Yes,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Yes, a few times. They put people in the pillory during the Laughing Prince’s rule too.’
Mo was still looking at her. ‘Don’t tell me you can get used to such sights.’
Meggie bent her head. The answer was yes. Yes, you could.
Mo took a deep breath, as if he had forgotten about breathing when he saw the weeping woman. Then he walked on in silence. He didn’t say a word until they reached the castle forecourt.
There was another pillory right beside the castle gates, with a boy in it. Fire-elves had settled on his bare skin. Mo handed Meggie the horse’s reins before she could stop him, and went over to the boy. Ignoring the guards at the gateway, who were staring at him, and the women passing by who turned their heads away in alarm, he shooed the fire-elves off the boy’s skinny arms. The boy just looked at him incredulously. There was nothing to be seen on his face but fear, fear and shame. And Meggie remembered a story that Farid had told her, of how Dustfinger and the Black Prince had once been in the pillory together, side by side, when they were not much older than the lad now looking at his protector in such alarm.
‘Mortimer!’
Meggie recognized the old man dragging Mo away from the pillory only after a second glance. Fenoglio’s grey hair came almost down to his shoulders; his eyes were bloodshot, his face unshaven. He looked old – Meggie had never considered Fenoglio old before, but now it was all she could think of.
‘Are you out of your mind?’ he snapped at her father in a low voice. ‘Hello, Meggie,’ he added abstractedly, and Meggie felt the blood shoot into her face as Farid appeared behind him.
Farid.
Keep very cool, she thought, but a smile had already stolen to her lips. Make it go away! But how, when it was so good to see his face? Jink was sitting on his shoulder, and sleepily flicked his tail when he saw her.
‘Hello, Meggie. How are you?’ Farid stroked the marten’s bushy coat.
Twelve days. Not a sign of life from him for twelve whole days. Hadn’t she firmly resolved not to say a word when she saw him again? But she just couldn’t be angry with him. He still looked so sad. Not a sign of the laughter that once used to be as much a part of his face as his black eyes. The smile he gave her now was only a sad shadow of it.
‘I’ve been wanting to come and see you so often, but Orpheus just wouldn’t let me go out!’ He was hardly listening to his own words. He had eyes only for Meggie’s father. The Bluejay.
Farid had led Mo away with him – away from the pillory, away from the soldiers. Meggie followed them. The horse was restless, but Farid calmed it. Dustfinger had taught him how to talk to animals. He was close beside Meggie, so near and yet so far away.
‘What was the idea of that?’ Fenoglio was still holding Mo firmly, as if afraid he might go back to the pillory. ‘Do you want to put your own head in that thing too? Or – no, very likely they’d impale it on a pike right away!’
‘Those are fire-elves, Fenoglio! They’ll burn his skin.’ Mo’s voice was husky with rage.
‘You think I don’t know that? I invented the little brutes. The boy will survive. I imagine he’s a thief. I don’t want to know any more.’
Mo moved away, turning his back on Fenoglio as abruptly as if to keep himself from striking the old man. He scrutinized the guards and their weapons, the castle walls and the pillory, as if trying to think of a way to make them all disappear. Don’t look at the guards, Mo! Meggie thought. That was the first thing Fenoglio had taught her in this world: not to look any soldier in the eye – any soldier, any nobleman – anyone who was allowed to carry a weapon.
‘Shall I spoil their appetite for his skin, Silvertongue?’ Farid came up between Mo and Fenoglio.
Jink spat at the old man, as if detecting him as the cause of all that was wrong in his world. Without waiting for Mo’s answer Farid went up to the pillory, where the elves had settled on the boy’s skin again. With a snap of his fingers he sent sparks flying to singe their shimmering wings and send them swirling through the air and away, with an angry buzz. One of the guards picked up his lance, but before he could move Farid painted a fiery basilisk on the castle wall with his finger, bowed to the guards – who were staring incredulously at their master’s burning emblem – and strolled back casually to Mo’s side.
‘Very audacious, dear boy!’ growled Fenoglio disapprovingly, but Farid took no notice of him.
‘Why did you come here, Silvertongue?’ he asked, lowering his voice. ‘This is dangerous!’ But his eyes were shining. Farid loved dangerous ventures, and he loved Mo for being the Bluejay.
‘I want to look at some books.’
‘Books?’ Farid was so bewildered that Mo couldn’t help smiling.
‘Yes, books. Very special books.’ He looked up at the tallest of the castle towers. Meggie had told him exactly where Balbulus had his workshop.
‘What’s Orpheus up to?’ Mo glanced at the guards. At this moment they were searching a butcher’s deliveries – though what for they didn’t seem to know. ‘I’ve heard he’s growing richer and richer.’
‘Yes, he is.’ Farid’s hand stroked Meggie’s back. When Mo was with them he always confined himself to caresses that weren’t too obvious. Farid felt great respect for fathers. But Meggie’s rosy blush certainly didn’t escape Mo’s attention. ‘He’s growing richer, but he hasn’t written anything to rescue Dustfinger yet! He thinks of nothing but his treasures, and what he can sell to the Milksop: wild boar with horns, golden lapdogs, spider moths, leaf men, anything else he can dream up.’
‘Spider moths? Leaf men?’ Fenoglio looked at Farid in alarm, but Farid didn’t seem to notice.
‘Orpheus wants to talk to you!’ he whispered to Mo. ‘About the White Women. Please do meet him! Maybe you know something that could help him to bring Dustfinger back!’
Meggie saw the pity in Mo’s face. He didn’t believe Dustfinger would ever come back, any more than she did. ‘Nonsense,’ he said as his hand instinctively went to the place where Mortola had wounded him. ‘I don’t know anything. Anything more than everyone knows.’
The guards had let the butcher pass, and one of them was staring at Mo again. The basilisk painted by Farid on the stones was still burning on the castle walls.
Mo turned his back on the soldier. ‘Listen!’ he whispered to Meggie. ‘I ought not to have brought you here. Suppose you stay with Farid while I go to see Balbulus? He can take you to Roxane’s, and I’ll meet you and Resa there.’
Farid put his arm round Meggie’s shoulders. ‘Yes, you go. I’ll look after her.’
But Meggie pushed his arm roughly away. She didn’t like the idea of Mo going on his own – although she had to admit she’d have been only too happy to stay with Farid. She’d missed his face so much.
‘Look after me? You don’t have to look after me!’ she snapped at him, more sharply than she had intended. Being in love made you so stupid!
‘She’s right about that. No one has to look after Meggie.’ Mo gently took the horse’s reins from her hand. ‘Now that I come to think of it, she’s looked after me more often than the other way round. I’ll soon be back,’ he told her. ‘I promise. And not a word to your mother,
all right?’
Meggie just nodded.
‘Stop looking at me so anxiously!’ Mo whispered in a conspiratorial tone. ‘Don’t the songs say the Bluejay hardly ever does anything without his beautiful daughter? So I’m much less of a suspicious character without you!’
‘Yes, but the songs are lying,’ Meggie whispered back. ‘The Bluejay doesn’t have a daughter at all. He’s not my father, he’s a robber.’
Mo looked at her for a long moment. Then he kissed her on the forehead as if obliterating what she had said, and went slowly towards the castle with Fenoglio.
Meggie never took her eyes off him as he reached the guards and stopped. In his black clothes he really did look like a stranger – the bookbinder from a foreign land who had come all this way to see the famous Balbulus’s pictures and give them proper clothes to wear at last. Who cared that he’d also become a robber on his long journey?
Farid took Meggie’s hand as soon as Mo had turned his back to them. ‘Your father’s as brave as a lion,’ he whispered to her, ‘but a little crazy too, if you ask me. If I were the Bluejay I’d never go through that gate, certainly not to see a few books!’
‘You don’t understand,’ replied Meggie quietly. ‘He wouldn’t do it for anything except the books.’
She was wrong about that, but she wouldn’t know it until later.
The soldiers let the writer and the bookbinder pass. Mo looked back at Meggie once more before he disappeared through the great gateway with its pointed iron portcullis. Ever since the Milksop had come to the castle it was lowered as soon as darkness fell, or whenever an alarm bell rang inside the building. Meggie had heard the sound once, and she instinctively expected to hear it again as Mo disappeared inside those mighty walls: the ringing of bells, the rattle of chains as the portcullis dropped, the sound of the iron spikes meeting the ground …
‘Meggie?’ Farid put one hand under her chin and turned her face to his. ‘You must believe me – I’d have come to see you ages ago, but Orpheus makes me work hard all day, and at night I steal out to Roxane’s farm. I know she goes to the place where she’s hidden Dustfinger almost every night! But she always catches me before I can follow her. Her stupid goose lets me bribe it with raisin bread, but if the linchetto in her stable doesn’t bite me then Gwin gives me away. Roxane even lets him into the house now, though she always used to throw stones at him before!’
What was he going on about? She didn’t want to talk about Dustfinger or Gwin. If you really missed me, she kept thinking, then why didn’t you come to see me at least once instead of going to Roxane’s? Just once. There was only one answer: because he hadn’t been missing her half as much as she’d missed him. He loved Dustfinger more than her. He would always love Dustfinger, even now he was dead. All the same, she let him kiss her, only a few paces from where the boy was still in the pillory with fire-elves on his skin. Don’t tell me you can get used to such sights …
Meggie didn’t see Sootbird until he had reached the guards.
‘What is it?’ Farid asked, as she stared over his shoulder. ‘Ah, Sootbird. Yes. He’s always going in and out of the castle. Whenever I see him I feel I could slit his throat!’
‘We must warn Mo!’
The guards let the fire-eater pass through like an old acquaintance. Meggie took a step towards them, but Farid kept her back.
‘Where do you think you’re going? Don’t worry, he won’t see your father! The castle is large, and Silvertongue is going to see Balbulus. Sootbird won’t lose his way and end up there too, you can bet! He has three lovers among the court ladies, he’s off to see them – if Jacopo doesn’t nab him first. He has to perform for the boy twice a day, and he’s still a terrible fire-eater in spite of all they say about him. Miserable informer! I really wonder why the Black Prince hasn’t killed him yet – or your father. Why are you looking at me like that?’ he added, seeing Meggie’s horrified expression. ‘Silvertongue killed Basta, didn’t he? Not that I saw it.’ Farid glanced quickly down, as he always did in speaking of the hours when he had been dead.
Meggie stared at the castle gates. She thought she could hear Mo’s voice talking about Sootbird. And if he does … last time he saw me I was half dead. And another encounter will be the worse for him.
The Bluejay. Stop thinking of him by that name, Meggie thought. Stop it!
‘Come on!’ Farid took her hand. ‘Silvertongue said I was to take you to Roxane. Won’t she just be glad to see me! But I expect she’ll put on a friendly act if you’re there too.’
‘No.’ Meggie freed her hand from his, good as it felt to be holding hands with him again at last. ‘I’m staying here. I’m staying right here until Mo comes out again.’
Farid sighed and rolled his eyes, but he knew her well enough not to argue with her.
‘Oh, wonderful!’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘If I know Silvertongue he’s sure to spend forever looking at those wretched books. So at least let me kiss you, or the guards will soon be wondering why we’re still standing around.’
7
A Dangerous Visit
The question, given God’s omniscient view,
Is: must what he foresees perforce come true?
Or is free choice of action granted me
To do a thing or else to let it be?
Geoffrey Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales (modernized)
Humble. Humility and servility. He wasn’t good at it. Did you ever notice that in the other world, Mortimer? he asked himself. Bow your head, don’t stand too straight, let them look down on you even if you’re taller than they are. Act as if you think it’s perfectly natural for them to rule and everyone else to work.
It was so hard.
‘Ah, you’re the bookbinder Balbulus is expecting,’ one of the guards had said, glancing at his black clothes. ‘What was all that with the boy just now? Don’t you like our pillory?’
Head lower, Mortimer! Go on. Pretend to be afraid. Forget your anger, forget the boy and his whimpering. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘Exactly! He … he comes from far away,’ Fenoglio was quick to add. ‘He has yet to get used to our new governor’s rule. But if you’ll allow us … Balbulus can be very impatient.’ Then he had bowed and hastily drew Mo on with him.
Ombra Castle … it was difficult not to forget everything else when he stepped into the great courtyard. He remembered so many of the scenes from Fenoglio’s book set here.
‘Heavens above, that was a close thing!’ whispered Fenoglio as they led the horse to the stables. ‘I don’t want to have to remind you again: you’re here as a bookbinder! Play the Bluejay just once more and you’re a dead man! Damn it, Mortimer, I ought never to have agreed to bring you here. Look at all those soldiers. It’s like being in the Castle of Night!’
‘Oh no, I assure you there’s a difference,’ Mo replied quietly, trying not to look up at the heads impaled on pikes that adorned the walls. Two belonged to a couple of the Black Prince’s men, although he wouldn’t have recognized them if the Strong Man hadn’t told him about their fate. ‘Although I didn’t imagine the castle quite like this from your original description in Inkheart,’ he whispered to Fenoglio.
‘You’re telling me?’ Fenoglio murmured. ‘First Cosimo had it all rebuilt, now the Milksop’s leaving his mark on the place. He’s had the gold-mockers’ nests torn down, and look at all the shacks they’ve put up to hoard their loot! I wonder if the Adderhead’s noticed yet how little of it ever reaches the Castle of Night. If he has, his brother-in-law will soon be in trouble.’
‘Yes, the Milksop is pretty brazen about it.’ Mo lowered his head as a couple of grooms came towards them. Even they were armed. His knife wouldn’t be much use if anyone actually did recognize him. ‘We stopped a few convoys intended for the Castle of Night,’ he continued quietly when they had passed, ‘and the contents of the chests always proved rather disappointing.’
Fenoglio stared at him. ‘You’re really doing it???
?
‘Doing what?’
The old man looked nervously around, but no one seemed to be taking any notice of them. ‘Well, all the things they sing about!’ he whispered. ‘I mean … most of the songs are poor stuff, badly written, but the Bluejay is still my character, so … what does it feel like? What does it feel like, playing him?’
A maid carried two slaughtered geese past them. The birds’ blood dripped on to the courtyard paving stones. Mo turned his head away. ‘Playing? Is that what it still feels like to you – some kind of game?’ His reply sounded touchier than he had intended.
Sometimes he’d really have given anything to read the thoughts in Fenoglio’s head. And, who knew, maybe he would indeed read them some day in black and white, and find himself there on the page with words spun around him, like a fly caught in an old spider’s web.
‘I admit it’s turned into a dangerous game, but I’m really glad you took the part! Because wasn’t I right? This world needs the Blue—’
Mo interrupted Fenoglio – and put his fingers to his lips. A troop of soldiers passed them, and Fenoglio bit back the name he had first written down on a piece of parchment not so long ago. But the smile with which he watched the soldiers pass was the smile of a man who had planted an explosive device in his enemies’ house, and was enjoying mingling with them knowing they had no idea he had laid that bomb.
Wicked old man.
Mo realized that the Inner Castle didn’t look as Fenoglio had described it any more, either. He quietly repeated the words he had once read: The Laughing Prince’s wife had laid out the garden because she was tired of the grey stones all around her. She planted flowers from foreign lands, and when they came into bloom they made her dream of distant seas, strange cities and mountains where dragons lived. She allowed gold-breasted birds to breed, birds that perched in the trees like feathered fruits, and planted a seedling from the Wayless Wood, a tree with leaves that could talk to the moon.
Fenoglio looked at him in surprise.
‘Oh, I know your book by heart,’ said Mo. ‘Have you forgotten how often I read aloud from it after your words had swallowed up my wife?’
The gold-breasted birds had left the Inner Courtyard too. The Milksop’s statue was reflected in a stone basin, and if the tree that talked to the moon ever existed then it had been felled. Dog-pens stood where there had once been a garden, and the new lord of Ombra’s hounds pressed their noses to the silvered wire fencing. It’s a long time since this was your story, old man, thought Mo as he and Fenoglio walked towards the Inner Castle. But, then, who was telling it now? Orpheus, maybe? Or had the Adderhead taken over as narrator, using blood and iron instead of pen and ink?